Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - How to Reopen Your Business - 146

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

Business has changed. We can’t just go back into normal business as it used to be before COVID-19.  We need to open businesses back up though. So how are we going to do that? We have a social responsibility to protect our clients, our business, and society as a whole. This is how Fit Body Boot Camp is opening our doors, and this is what you should do too.   Here’s what you’ll discover: 07:00 - How to withstand the social stigma of reopening businesses 15:24 - What Fit Body Boot Camp is doing while reopening “You’re going to have to fight social stigma.” “You are in business to make money.” “You’ve got to control the narrative.” - Bedros Keuilian   --   Follow me on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian   Buy Man Up and get Bedros’ High Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/   Subscribe to My Channel for weekly videos: http://www.youtube.com/bedroskeuilian/?sub_confirmation=1   Youtube https://youtu.be/N_QIlFMu98k

And so make no mistake about it, whatever industry you're in, you're going to have to go into business in a very different way than you did business pre-coronavirus. So you want to reopen America. Well, I think it's time to reopen America as well. But how we reopen America after the COVID-19 virus is the question. Listen, I don't care what your position is on the virus itself, whether you think it's a conspiracy, you think it's just another flu, or you think it's this crazy pandemic that is literally really really. ruining humanity, the reality is the economic disaster is causing is much, much worse. And we are going to go into business, but you have a social responsibility to your clients, customers, and community, and you also have a financial responsibility. Welcome to the Empire Show. My name is

Bedros Kulian, and this is a very special episode on the coronavirus. Let's talk about opening up your business. Listen, guys and gals, I don't know what your belief system is about the coronavirus. I really don't. And quite honestly, I don't care. Here's the reality. I've heard that it's a conspiracy. I've heard that it's manmade. I've heard that they just want to vaccinate everybody. I've heard that it's due Illuminati. I've heard that some cat in China decided to undercook a bat before he ate it. I've also heard it's just a flu and people are making it a big deal. Now, whatever it is, or just a big thing, pandemic, we got to get back into business because at some point, the fallout, the negative

fallout from the COVID-19 virus may end up causing more deaths and may cause more financial crippling than any other single financial disaster we've ever had. Now, you might be like, well, hey, Bezos, it's worth it. Let me explain to you. I'm telling you that we may very well, if this continues and we don't open up businesses, we may very well have more deaths because of the economic crisis than the viral crisis. Do you understand that? And so maybe we ought to consider reopening businesses. And at some point, we're going to have to open businesses.

The question is, what does that look like? How does that operate? Well, I'm holding in my hot little hands right here. an eight-page document that we put together here at Fit Body Boot Camp headquarters because look, we have hundreds of franchise locations around the world, right? Over 700 locations around the world. And we do have to go into business. And we're going to do it smart.

We're going to do it in a sensible way. We're going to do it in a way where we can look out after our clients and their health, as well as the communities that we serve. in addition to the financial. We have to look out after the financials as well because make no mistake about it. Things are not going to be normal. So guys, let's talk about this for a moment.

And it doesn't matter if you have a gym like I do, right? Like we have hundreds of gyms around the world or if you have a hair salon or a nail salon, it doesn't matter if you're a doctor or a restaurant, maybe you have a sporting goods store. The facts of the matter is we got to give you. back to some level of normalcy. And how we do that is pretty tricky. Here's why. You're not just fighting the virus. You're also fighting social stigma. For example, we've got a eyelash

business down the street here in Chino Hills. And the woman that owns it owns two locations. and recently she started wearing a mask and going back to her business. Now, keep in mind, all of her employees are out of business or out of work. They're all at home. They're on furlough. They're laid off. I'm guessing they're getting unemployment. The owner of the business still has to pay rent.

The other owner of the business is still getting asked by her clients. I'd like to get my lashes done. So she decided she'll wear a mask. and her customers can wear a mask and they can come one at a time and everyone's going to be sanitized and she's going to do lashes. And as it turns out, people are driving by and taking pictures and making videos and yelling at her and telling her that she's a greedy SOB because she's staying open for business. Now, I don't know what your position on that is, but I've got a position on that.

And the position is this. one lady helping another lady get her eyelashes one at a time with a mask on and everyone being sanitized seems to be a lot less risky than when I walk into a grocery store and I see people walking around with masks yet touching everything with their bare hands. People are touching the produce. They're touching the boxes. They're touching the bags. They're touching soda cans and putting it back.

Now, I'm going to assume that if this coronavirus was truly as bad as everyone says, we should probably have even the foods at the grocery stores in the back somewhere. And we should be able to go into a grocery store and not touch anything until the people that work there, hey, I'll take four apples and five avocados and two bananas. And oh, by the way, I'll take a bag of chips, a six-pack of soda, pop and dogg on it, I love pretzels, so throw in two bags of pretzels, right? And then, of course, they would put it in a bag for you and wearing gloves and masks and you'd pay and you'd go home, but that's not how it is. You could literally go to your local grocery store right now and touch

everything on the shelves with your bare hands as long as your mouth is covered, as long as your nose is covered. Well, how do they know I wasn't sneezing into my hands in the car? How do they know that my hands are clean? How can they risk that? So I'm not saying that things are exaggerated, but I am saying that you're going to have to fight social stigma. Whether you're the eyelash lady or you're a gym or a hair salon opening up, if you go back to business as normal and you don't take the precautions necessary, there's going to be some level of social stigma that you're going to deal with. And nowadays, when people can film what you're doing and put it on social media and call you a greedy pig and say that you're,

you're just looking to hurt society, just to line your pockets, it's probably going to be bad for business. Now, I've got a client, he owns five businesses. And, and, you know, in a Midwestern state. Five stores. We won't go into what kind of stores it is, but suffice to say that's the kind of store where, you know, there could be 30, 40, 50 people at a time in the store wondering around buying things.

Now, he stayed open because his state said he could stay open. The governor said he could stay open. The mayor said he could stay open. The employees who work there are fine working there. as he stays open but all over social media this dude's getting flamed he's getting flamed

and one of our most recent talks on a coaching call I asked him is the repercussion of all that flaming going to cost you more in the end are people going to remember that and not come do business with you when everything goes back to normal and he said you know what you make a really good point So guys, make no mistake about it, we're in a place where how you are perceived matters.

So what we're doing with Fit Body Boot Camp is we're not only going to go back to business, when it's safe to go back to business in a smart, sanitized way. We're going to do it in a way that we can control social perception. Let me give you another example of this, because whatever your business is and whether you're part, of that phase one. I know they gave out phases and I think gyms, health clubs, kind of fell into that first phase of businesses. Of course, no one gave us a timeline, a date, what precautions to take. They just said, well, make sure you practice sanitizing systems and, you know, you socially distance. Okay, well, that interpretation could be different for many different people.

And so it's ironic to me that we not only have to think about how we're going to do business, but we have to think about the social repercussions of that. See, once the governors or the mayors or the powers that be say that, hey, gyms or hair salons or whatever type of business can go back to business, the landlords of those businesses are going to start charging rent. Now, when you think about it, a FitBody Boot Camp will have anywhere from 20 to 50 clients working out at any given time in a group environment, right? The model behind the Fit Body Boot Camp program, the 30-minute program that delivers amazing fat loss results is called the Four Station rotation. We never take a rest. We have active rest, and that's it. It's a group of people broken up into sections, into stations, and in a 30-minute program,

the coaches lead them through station rotations. And while the results come and it's a fun environment and it's high energy, there's no way we're going to let people go touching the battle ropes, the kettlebells, the suspension straps and TRX, the slam balls, and dumbbells. There's no way that's going to happen right now as we open the doors. Now, we need 25, 30, 40 people at a time per session, or some of you might call it per class, to keep our business growing and profitable. But using social distancing means we're going to have to have 8, 10, 12, maybe 15 people in a big location where they're fully spread out,

where they're not rotating. Everyone's working in what we call train in place. Now, how do you think that's going to affect the profit margins of that fit body boot camp or of that hair salon that has to now have every other seat occupied instead of every seat? How's that going to work when the landlord says, look, you're open for business. I'm going to charge you full rent, yet we can't make full revenue. And so make no mistake about it, whatever industry you're in, you're going to have to go into business in a very different way than you did business pre-coronavirus.

And so I want to share with you guys what we're doing at FitBody Boot Camp so that you guys out there in your businesses, whatever type of brick and mortar you have, can use some version of this to not only control the spread of the COVID virus, can not only eliminate the fear and the risk, but can also control. social stigma because you do have a social responsibility to your community and clients, and you have a financial responsibility to your business and to your family. And when I say controlling the social stigma, controlling that narrative, here's what I mean. You may have not traveled recently, but if you think about the last time you traveled,

you go through an airport, they really make you jump through hoops to give you a sense of security. Now I've got some friends in pretty high places, and as I talk to them, and they tell me that, look, you know, those random screenings of, you know, old senior citizen white people, that's just to create a sense of security, you know, randomly selected or taking off your shoes is to create a sense of security or to take off your hat and your jacket as you go through. through the detector is a false sense of security. Now I can tell you myself, I traveled a lot, and I'll be traveling a lot again. And in my backpack, I carry a pocket knife. And most times I remember to take my pocket knife out. There's been a good handful of times that I've left my pocket knife in my backpack, completely forgotten.

And every single time, it's gotten through. It's gotten through. multiple airports across the country. Yet I take off my ball cap, my jacket, my shoes, my belt to create a false sense of security for me and others around me because that is what's required for us to feel safe to fly. So I don't care how you feel about the virus. And I don't care how you feel about the false sense of security that you have to create in addition to the real security and safety that you have to create. The truth of the matter is you do have to control the narrative and the social stigma

because all it takes is a handful of people to come by your business, take pictures, take videos, smear you on social media, and you may very quickly end up out of business. Now, am I saying that go back to business as usual but create a false sense of security without really doing anything proactive about it? Absolutely not. You would be stupid to think that. So I'm going to go through a list of what we're doing at FitBody Boot Camp to go through the opening and operation process

as we slowly phase into what will be normal operations. Now, I'm sharing this with you because this is something that I feel I owe it to the fitness industry, not just to our franchisees. I believe that if some other gym down the street decides to be reckless and negligent and doesn't take the precautions that we're taking and ends up flaring up the virus. Now remember, we talked about this. I don't care what you think about the virus. It doesn't matter if you think it's, look, it's just a flu.

Who cares if someone flares it up? So a handful of people get the flu. Old people and people with compromised immune systems die anyway. What's the big deal, Pedro? I get that. I get that. I'm not arguing that point. I'm not arguing that point.

What I'm saying is if that person, see, right now the COVID virus has been vilified, America has been shut down. The country, the global economy has been hit hard. And so if one gym down the street or one hair salon down the street or one restaurant down the street flares up the virus in the community, you don't think that there's going to be a massive sweep across the country? of shutting down those restaurants and similar hair salons and similar gyms, there is. So I believe, as someone who's been in the fitness industry on the business side of it for 20 years, I have a social responsibility to my community, to my industry.

But I can tell you a lot of what I'm about to share with you is going to bleed into your industry, whether you're a restaurant, whether you are just a store selling trinkets, a hair salon, whatever, right? a shoe store. And so let's dive into that for a moment. One thing that we're going to do is we are setting up sanitization stations outside of our Fit Body Boot Camp locations. So before a client walks in, they're going to sanitize their hands with Purell and we're going to bleach and water spray the bottoms of their shoes before they walk in. Now, obviously we're going to have mats to dry off those shoes. But you probably know this already, and if you don't, it's one ounce of bleach for 100 ounces

of water. That is the solution you need. Now why shoes? Because that is the number one way in gyms that viruses, germs, and bacteria are brought in. Think of all the things you're stepping on. And then if you work out at a gym and you're doing... burpees or push-ups or you're laying down and you're doing sit-ups or you're doing planks, you're touching a lot of the areas where the bottoms of shoes have touched.

So we're taking the precaution of not only sanitizing the hands outside, but also the bottoms of the shoes, right? And as people come into that Fit Body Boot Camp location, they're going to come in an average of 10 people at a time, no longer 20, 30, 50, 50, 50, people, not yet. And what we've done is we've actually drawn out on the mats at FitBody Boot Camp 8 by 8x 8 feet by 8 feet squares. And that 8 by 8 square is really there for one client to work out in. And that one client is going to bring a beach towel or a bath towel with them. See, it's no longer the 4-station rotation, not now. And I don't care what kind of gym you have. I don't care if it's a CrossFit and Orange Theory and F-45 or whatever. Your model of moving

people around from bench to treadmill to dumbbells to et cetera to pushing sleds to barbells, that's not going to work, man. And if you're like, hey, but I don't care, you know, it's just a cold flu, a virus flu, whatever. Yeah, right. Wait till you see it when people show up with cameras and smear your shit all over social media. Look how quickly you're going to give yourself a bad name and destroy your reputation. So I'm not arguing the fact that it might just be a flu virus and nothing more. On the flip side, let's assume that it's not and operate like it's not. Let's just be cautious so that we can give our communities and the people we serve a sense of security and safety

because that is the fastest avenue for us to go back into business and make money. And when you make money, you can go start spending that money in other businesses. And when you start spending that money in other businesses, guess what happens? The economy starts to get stimulated. You think the fucking economy is going to get stimulated by some check being sent to you by the government? You think these stimulus checks are what's going to stimulate the economy? Shit. What's going to stimulate the economy is you going out there, making money, spending money,

and repeating that cycle. And if we all do that, the economy is going to be just fine. But the longer we wait, the more we put it off, the longer we stay in fear, and the more reckless we are in reopening America, the worse is going to be for all of us. So step one, we're sanitizing hands outside of Fit Body Boot Camp location. Step two, we're sanitizing the bottom of the shoes before they walk in. Step three, everyone's working out in an eight foot by eight foot taped off square and they're bringing their beach towel or bath towel to put in that square.

And instead of rotating, we're using the train in place method where you're going to be in that eight by eight for that 30 minutes with 10 other people, nine other people, 12 other people around you, depending on the size of the fit body, plenty of social distancing. you might have one, maybe two pieces of equipment in that one eight by eight. You might have a kettlebell. I might have a weighted ball. The next person might have a set of dumbbells. Whatever it is, the coaches are going to lead the program.

And between using body weight and whatever piece of equipment we have there, we're going to deliver one hell of a workout. We're going to deliver one hell of a workout. What is the towel for? Because when the next group comes in, we don't want them swimming in your sweat. right they're not going to feel good about that can you imagine that in this day and age when everyone's afraid of touching everything you come into an eight by eight square after two groups have gone through and it's a little wet it's a little moist like what the fuck just happened here like you know you don't you don't we don't even want to feel that you want to feel dryness

right so we're using the train and place method And when that 30-minute session is done, every client's going to get a chlorox wipe or a lysol wipe, and they're going to wipe down their one piece of equipment, then their hands with it, and if they need to use the restroom, there's signage all over the restroom on the way in and on the way out, how to sanitize their hands, the toilet flusher handle, the sink handles, the doorknobs on either side, and to minimize contact and touching with everything. check-in process with the workouts are going to be different. No more touching things. It's now a scan. Right? And it used to be that as long as you knew what session times we had, you could show up.

Well, now that we have limited space, because we're going to have limited bodies, it's going to be by appointment only. And you're probably wondering, well, what happens with the next session that's coming in? Well, guess what? after we do our 30-minute session, we're taking 20 to 30 minutes to clean, to sanitize. That's where the coaches take 20 to 30 minutes. It's no more back-to-back sessions. But Bezos, that sounds so excessive. That sounds a little over the top. That sounds a little too much.

It does. All it takes is one person to spread the virus to one other person for it to make it on the news. See, what's not going to make it on the news, that thousands of people across the country, had an awesome workout at Fit Body Boot Camp that day, or at your gym, or the thousands of people got their hair done, or went to your restaurant. What we'll get up on the news is that one person who came into your hair salon and got the COVID, or ate at your restaurant and got the COVID, or worked out at your gym and got the COVID. So you've got to be extreme. You've got to be extreme in the way you message to your clients. Even before our clients come in, they're going to get an

email saying this is the protocol. Here's how we're doing things. These are the expectations we have of you. These are the expectations you should have of us. We're not going to high five after workouts. Now, do I personally care? Like if I was, like if it was just one gym and I was, hey, do I? No, I don't care. I don't care. I believe I've got a strong immune system. I believe if you're a client, you know, you decide if you're going to come. You assume you've got a strong immune system. We're all going to be okay. But the reality is, I have a greater responsibility. And so sometimes you have to put your thoughts, ideas, and assumptions aside for the greater good of the society.

It's just how it is. That is just how it is. So I share this with you guys because while that session is working out, there's another group of 10 or 12 waiting outside in a taped off area. in the parking lot or on the sidewalk, socially distanced, so that we don't have an overlap and cross-contamination of clients going in and out. Because think about it, if they go in and out through the doors, they come in inches. They come in contact within almost inches of each other, right? So once the group that worked out leaves, while it's being sanitized,

the group that's outside start sanitizing their hands. they get the bottoms of their shoes sprayed. And once the coach is given the green light, after everything's been wiped down by the coaches, then the second group can come in. And then we repeat the cycle. Now the goal would be that we do this for two to four weeks. We see that there's no virus spike in the community.

And then we begin to phase in to a more normal type of training. Maybe at that point, we still keep a small group, but we start utilizing more equipment. Then another three, four weeks go by. No virus spike. Now we bring in more people and we start going to our typical forestation rotation, which produces amazing results at FitBody Boot Camp. So why am I sharing this with you? Because you have got a social responsibility.

you've got a financial responsibility and make no mistake about it, whether you're a gym or any other kind of business, they could do your business online, a chiropractor that's very hands-on, a physical therapist. I've got physical therapists coaching clients and chiropractor coaching clients, and look, they're doing telemedicine over the phone, having people self-adjust, right? Self-physical therapy.

It can be done. And all of our Fit Body Boot Camp Locations world, are doing online coaching very successfully. And there will be a period of time, especially in that first four weeks, where maybe we can't have enough session times throughout the day, even if we open up extra session times. Because the cleaning after every session takes so long that we may have to do a hybrid of online coaching and in-person coaching. So be prepared to do what needs to happen in your business, even if that means running a hybrid. Be prepared if you have to raise your rates for new clients coming in because now the demand is higher, the supply is less. You can raise

your rates because you are going to have higher operational costs. Those operational costs are going to be connected with your cleaning costs that will go up by 3 to 5x. And when you have less bodies in your salon or your gym or your studio. I mean, think about a tanning salon that has 10 or 15 beds. And think about it's going to take much longer to sanitize those beds. Think about how scared people are going to be to come in and use those beds. And think about when that tanning salon goes into business, the landlord starts charging rent.

See, the expenses stay, but the revenue may not be as high unless you can get creative and do some kind of hybrid, right? And so what we do with Fit Body Boot Camp, obviously, is we're going to keep the hybrid system going of online coaching and offline coaching, right, the in-person studio workouts. Thankfully, we've got a supplement line where we drop ship to our clients worldwide

and our franchise owners make additional revenue from there. And, you know, you want to talk about what does the end of the day look like at a Fit Body Boot Camp during this going back to business phase? Well, now we're going to have to have to, pop off sanitizing foggers, not misters. You don't want the place, you don't want your gym floors and the gym walls to be wet. So you can't spray it down with, you know, the bleach and water solution. They're sanitizing foggers, just like the ones they use in airplanes. And we're going to pop those

off at the end of the day. The coaches get there early, bright and early in the morning, air the place out and now you've got a fully sanitized location to start all over again. But guys, I share this with you because if you're taking this whole thing lightly, you're going to make a big mistake. And if you think that going back to business is going to be business as usual, I'm here to tell you that there's paranoid people, there's panicky people, there's gossipy people who are going to be all up in your shit just waiting for you to make a mistake so they can snap a picture, they can take a video, post you all over social media. And I don't think they're looking to do this. that to put you out of business. I don't think that's their intention. I really believe there's people

who think that this virus is going to kill them. Like this, like if they even come anywhere near it, it will kill them. This kind of reminds me in the early 90s when, you know, the talk of AIDS and HIV, and people were so ignorant about it that the assumption was that if you just are around someone who's got AIDS or HIV that you're going to get it, which obviously we now know is not true. It's pretty difficult to get. Right? And so you've got that social responsibility. You've got that financial responsibility. You've got to control the narrative, regardless of how you feel about the COVID virus. Because if you want America to go back to business, if you want to open America up again, And if you want to open your business up again, then you've got a responsibility to make sure

that that virus does not peak or flare up on your watch. And I'm going to finish this episode by telling you this. Make no mistake about it, guys and gals. You are in business to make money. And if you think that, hey, you know, now's not the time for me to ask for money, to make money, to charge more, to bring other additional income streams into my business. you are mistaken. Now is the time

to raise your rates. Now is the time to charge more. Now is the time to bring additional income streams into your business. Now is the time to sell and market harder than ever. Because if you don't, you may very likely be that business

that opens up for just a few months and then shuts down for good because you didn't have the operational financial capacity. Because that is what's going to happen. And I'll make that prediction. We will have more businesses shut down after opening up post-coronavirus than they did during this time where they had to shut down and stay shut.

Because if you make the misconception that I can open up business as usual, not realizing that your expenses will continue, your rent will continue, payroll will continue, payroll will be higher, your rent will be the same. Your credit card companies will start charging you again. Like everyone's going to go back to business, but if you are limiting the number of clients that you have,

and if you are limiting the amount of dollars you charge, you will have more expenses, less revenue, and you're going to run out of runway, and that's how you go out of business. So I'm here to tell you, make no mistake about it. Be safe, follow your social responsibilities, but make a ton of money because no one's ever gotten bankrupt by making a ton of money unless they were stupid and mismanaged it. Hey, I'm Pedro's Kuh, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Empire Show. listen, do me a favor and take a screenshot, share this. I think this is one of those episodes

that must be shared. I think you have a social responsibility to share this episode with as many people as possible in your stories, on your timelines. Give us a five-star review on the podcast platforms on YouTube and of course, as always, thank you so much for listening to the Empire Show, watching this show, and I'll see you next time.